Tim Aten

hearing the word “chukka” with boot stood out

the pale tan lawn shoes stayed in the garage when not worn

if he was in the golden black and white tv western
they’d be moccasins
in the newly settled suburb
with a far off hiss OM of the highway

they were his chukka boots likely from GOLD CIRCLE
they canvassed his garden lawn with wheels
decompressing on the lined up rows of the previous indentations
gotta line up the grass row
high and tight

he’d sit on the white wire patio chair on the green astro turf inside his breezeway

breezeway another word
chukka boot breezeway

laced up for the world outside the golden linoleum and brown comfort carpet
resonated with thoughtful dim lamps in the first settled suburban home
white siding
black trim
like the LIFE and LOOK magazines

the chukka boots guided the lawn mower on the always damp high and tight grass
walking on it like a tracker in moccasins on the westerns that played on TV
in the golden linoleum and brown comfort carpet

the chukka boots had more use and wear than a briefcase i can’t remember
or the ties i inherited
they were his moccasins connected to his stone encased lawn garden
stones he wheelbarrowed himself
back and forth on the damp green just beyond the breezeway
the lawn retreat outside the newly settled
suburban castle

and now in my own
ordered online
delivered in a box
My CLARKS chukka boots were the lineage of the moccasin TV western to damp green geometric angles lining up
the high and tight mind

my chukka boots had been buried
in a multi-generational era bound basement
in a suburb that was settled so long ago it’s called a village
the chukka boots dried and crusty with remnants of caked kitty litter
long forgotten
barely worn
never used
and put aside for kicks, sneakers, running shoes
and DUNKS

the basement can gobble up our feet seeking the correct moccasin

i found the brown polish
the white mink oil
the buffer
the rag
the brush
and tenderly cleaned and restored
recalling what it is to have proper lines
wheels in their previous stripes on the damp green lawn

chukka boot breezeway to the moccasin TV western
black and white
high and tight

It’s over
lives have moved on
my friend OV moved on years ago
out of state

The pandemic calendar dot of April 2020 was a Buick GMC erase board date
on a white board retail calendar
in a Southern looking conference room into Canada
in the black towers of the Ren Cen
Detroit.

people were dying
and our GM work was discussing ventilators

“Years ago” is the post pandemic mental math I have
years are eras
memories are outerbody memories
as the planet spouts
and our stardusts no longer know who we were before and during the lockdown

the first years with non family humans in the pandemic middle
OV and I were our corporate General Motors selves in the black towers
reading the invisible interchange of the people’s levels with unclassified directors
purposeful in the American legacy of mobility
SUVs and trucks

OV was a single swagger and focused on fast times
and an era behind me
OV was known as the gifted one
who knew how to crystalize the confusion of trims, inventory, regions, DMAS, LMAs, and the monthly sales charts
to make the line go up
OV crystalized the bombardment of information and was able to make a simple powerpoint story to the nations dealers
content strategy masked as the three act play

in large banquet hall meetings with men in oversized and untailored suites with no ties
OV would pace, an invisible general
while the VPs pitched his crystal
before all our memories became outer body

in the time of the pre era we had begun running outside
comparing, commiserating, pontificating, understanding
and aspiring to run marathons
conference room chatter shifted to sneakers
our admiration for Sauconys
Endorphins

i was slow walk simple
completion focus
married with a daughter in high school adjusting to the online isolation pandemic
we all were

OV became an outside possibility to our family
A friend I ran with
A friend to hop in cars for 45 min run destinations at Hines Drive and Kensington
lecturing and suggesting Garmin watches
more important than Sauconys
and “you should really do intervals” that took me to absorb that OV lesson

I’ve continued to run
From the greatest gift
and the build up of friendship from OV
that culminated in our home grown NYC postponed Detroit Halloween marathon
up Woodward
where the the sun glory elevated the miles and drivers acknowledged with intrigued smiles when we stopped at curbs
pimps and prostitutes playing relays in muffler rich hatchbacks
sharing with me in Ferndale on Marshall that he carried a blade
Slim Shady stopped at 14 mile in his Beamer, I knew his nose
agony in Birmingham
The MAGA rally with flags and buses and OV gestured while I was vomiting
the way he stared at the mirror at himself while he talked to our small party post marathon

The gift from OV of the Ciele hat inscribed with

Perfect quietude
Freedom
The highest happiness
Never Mind the Pain

i cherish and still run with it, the greatest gift

i remember going to LA fitness a week before lockdown and sitting in a sauna where the conversation was China and bats
the one run in Royal Oak
a dark 630am run before our new webex reality started at 830am

the world was locked down
disappeared from itself
ancient quietness
radical stillness
OV and my Garmin heartbeat
our shared pace and cadence dissected after
the run

our conversation on the cold sidewalks
like talking out loud in the library
farting through the nudge our planet and history was cracking
i yelled on main street “is any one there”
and because I could
and nothing would matter in the greatest gift
in the middle of the era’s three act play

15 minute land battle
in the block
in the time
in the start
out the window
in the window
of time
square
rectangle phone

beside myself
inside myself
keeping us in
on that rectangle glass emanating the timer

tools, doorways, windows, suction cups, seducers, validators, desperators, oracles, wizards, demons, cons, gurus, all the knowledge
organized to prediction
omniscient influencers
locked in this self help spiritual growth
land body battle of blocked 15 minutes
windows to action and not pause of the familiar foliage i’ve known over the years
peony, iris, stargazer lily, and arborvitae

is staring creative?
is zoning out transformative if there’s no technology?

our friendships have become radical

i take the block of time
the fidelity of that tetris window in the days is the casualty outcome
night time is still waves
and that cascade that water lapping
needs to fill the block of time
this 15 minute block of time so that my eyes
zone out
water the foliage
the peony, the iris, the shoegazer lily, and arborvitae
before me
through the rectangle window

Last night Pete and I saw Wu-Tang Clan at LCA. He drove up from his house in Black Mountain for a summer jaunt week in Michigan. Our history of memory and experiences, sloppy past and heartfelt connection. We attempt to make cleaner now with barber cuts and recognition of sleeping.The Wu were fifty-year-old men acting as super-hero ninja action figures playing their MC super power part deeply aware of the metaphors that RZA presided over. He is a true master who went early at a young age and faced that demon and darkness to come out cold and inspiring. The Wu succeeded and they live residual culture essence in the lexicon.

The audience, mostly men, had the skin and beard tones of Pete and I. Elements of jugallo fringes and funk. Marijuana, smoke, incense and Shea Butter Detroit fabulous.

All of it was routine and performative.
The stage and the audience had all moved on from that era as we know we had all changed the past five years. The pandemic was an unveiling and now this current climate unfolding we know we’re going into something we don’t yet know, too afraid, too stu pid to look at history.

The climate the Wu warned about, and the Chamber we have all entered.

The Chamber Pete and I once shared has long been broken, the clay pot shattered. Some around us have been left intact, water seeping into the patio cracks absorbed by moss.

As Pete and I had the routine middle eastern Detroit restaurant where the young men emulate their old world elders. We broke bread and shared the chicken schwarma relating the new chamber we were entering, educated by Wu Tang sloppy and wavy decades ago.

the hollow wombs of the train’s box cars beat a slow consistent bass timpani reverb
across the suburb dark
that night i found out
as i laid in the warm fall mesh screen window
aware truth was to be the dream blocker that night
that night i learned about the leaving of the locomotive pull
of empty box cars leaving the suburb town
leaving me to what I thought it was
the slow clink clank of industrial wallop
waves of the train on tracks was ominous
but pure
consistent
grander than my knowledge and understanding
magic was the cadence and the ability to fall into my bed as I lay there alone
reverted to the lost boy who just
found out about the perversions of men

her mother had lemon plants in bright white kitchens alongside darumas, frogs, and cat figurines 
water bubble flowed with miniature fountains and aquariums
take the lemon plant out for a walk
in the plastic white target pot
the mod looking one
is what she did that day
the lemon plant in the white pot
the lemon plant named cello
take the lemon plant out for a walk
to set in
the sun
taken out from indoors of the decades long unwanted home 
   of dust bunnies and closet kitchen
   one bathroom where all have been raised 
   and seen 
   in the 100 year old original cloudy mirror
with lead in the water and the need of filters in cardboard boxes from target 

take the lemon plant out for a walk
to set in
the sun
to look for yellow
and absorb solar suburb sunshine
as she exits 
the screen door off the deck
the stage
and resurrects her teenage girl waddle with the plastic white target pot at her side
the mod one 
she’s now dressed aging glamorous gray
the lemon plant which is her mother
her duty for her kyoto lineage
shone through decades of drama into a sun settle

There are reference videos at the bottom of this post, works cited in this poem.

the biz the buzz the banter on chatgpt
do you know this is
yeah, you know
me?
a10
a memory morsel that embryo sprouts to a body named
tim

i query the sun’s string with a $15 android app that alarms to go out and see the ultraviolet light 
i right click
i element inspect		websites 

then partake with suburban free time hustlers who vegetable sow 
with internet mail order flower beds plotted in backyards
transcribed from graph paper laying out seed spacing 

we’re washed into being wannabe pocket developers 
and .net ballmer dancers 
that old drunk kerouac prophesied - the pre-ai on william f buckley TV
before the bizz the buzz the banter on chatgpt

kerouac saw famous kodachrome 
polaroid
future mini-dv 
mobile microcomputers in our hands and mirrored faces
that perpetually write instant recognition 
division
and multiply wanna be pocket developer jockeys

terror to the currency calculated by cash dollar no gold
while the robot listened all along
and now we prompt it, poke it, 

and question whether this is me
the biz the buzz the banter on chatgpt

the acupuncturist’s plum blossom mallet 
sparks the pain past the cigarette lighter sparks from the packaged flint
and the acupuncturist is the oracle and alchemist 
in the division and terror beneath the graph paper plotting seeds in the garden
the formulas
the certificates and diplomas of the system
the tamping of her plum blossom mallett soothes into flow 
felt by flesh frequencies that no robot goes 

our currencies and artificial languages may create leisure for vegetable gardens 
to forget the fucking fame

fasting

scrape of sirens in the distance
background to spring ice 
cracking on the window 

.NET Ballmer Dancers – Developers

Jack Kerouac with William F Buckley

Run, Hide, Fight.
a recess playground game the bully insists his audience plays
kids badged as superheroes and princesses in awkward clothes
run the elementary school’s baseball diamonds and asphalt kickball courts
to hide behind a tree
or fight the bully

we adrenaline listened because our children might die.
ARIELLE. ALEXANDRIA. BRIAN.

Run, Hide, Fight.
the motto of our system
the rubric we teach our children
the method, the structure, the mantra, the meaning of existence
the church of media and entertainment all transistor crystalized
in its purest form on the police scanner
where the dispatcher is the new celebrity and crowd sourced rewarded
am i guilty of a coveted click?
or just getting by in the method, the structure, the mantra, the meaning of existence
on a playground where i drew the fancy branded running shoes

while men, it’s MEN,
some men shove and hog an 11pm camera
to think it’s their shot for the coveted click and recognition to revenue
in the United Democracy of Run, Hide, Fight.
when your daughter cowers, shrinks, descends in a 7th floor dorm room
barricaded with a wicker papasan
illuminated by an ipad facetime
going silent when the hallway elevator opens and someone twists the door knob
hiding in the sick money game of surveillance system profiting off of aryan romances of militias
and invisible men perpetuating sadistic bully rules of
Run, Hide, Fight.

some women and men are noble in badges affixed with radios and information
and authentically speak the word
community
communities of daughters and sons, friends, shell shocked and caked with screams
bowed to a Spartan Statue no longer about football and academic memories
but the temple of the dead flowers
mom tears from our governor dissolving
her past loving reminders of Berkey Hall and the Union
and all there is for her to say is
this is bullshit
echoes her innocence lost into Dante’s Run, Hide, Fight hell